


Morning coffee

by cian1675



Category: Block B
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff, M/M, Minhyuk has a crush on the cute barista lol, barista kyung
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 12:57:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8668462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cian1675/pseuds/cian1675
Summary: The first thing Minhyuk notices about the new barista is his hands. They’re elegant with long fingers but strong, with a map of veins running across the back of his hands.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the [barista Kyung scenes](http://stillcian1675.tumblr.com/post/149262011601/close-ups-of-barista-park-kyung-sx) in the Inferiority Complex MV.
> 
>  

The first thing Minhyuk notices about the new barista is his hands. They’re elegant with long fingers but strong, with a map of veins running across the back of his hands. The knuckles on the barista’s hands are raised, slightly red, like he might be  tough enough to take care of himself but isn’t violent enough to usually use them. He’s pouring coffee beans into the grounder now, back turning against Minhyuk, and that snaps him out of his reverie. He hopes no one had noticed him staring intensely at the new barista, carefully lowering his head to look at his shoes for the rest of the time he has to wait before his coffee is ready.

 

 

The next time Minhyuk’s back in the café, the new barista isn’t there. Instead, it’s his usual barista for when he gets his morning coffee.

“Good morning, Minhyuk hyung. Your usual order?”

“Morning to you too, Yukwon. Yeah, the usual is fine.”

If he’s being honest, Minhyuk hears the slightest trace of disappointment in his own  voice under the warm words he gave Yukwon, but he chooses to ignores it. Minhyuk’s just here for coffee, and he’s only seen the other barista once. There’s no reason for him to be upset that the guy’s not working at the moment, none at all, but it doesn’t stop him from feel slightly empty anyway.

“Here’s your order, hyung,” Yukwon calls out, and Minhyuk manages to give a quick smile before he grabs his coffee to head off to work.

 

 

He catches the new barista a few days later, when he’s making a coffee run that’s not in his usual schedule. Work had been a huge pain, the paperwork he had to get through neverending, and Minhyuk figured a nice relaxing cup of something ridiculously sweet like green tea latte might be just the thing he needs before he heads home. The moment he enters the café, the smell of freshly grounded coffee wafts past his tiredness, and Minhyuk finds himself perking up. It’s because the place smells like fresh coffee, he reasons, and not because he finally sees the new barista again. No, of course not.

“Good evening! What can I get you?” The barista asks cheerily when Minhyuk reaches the counter, and he manages to read the guy’s name tag this time. _Park Kyung_.

He means to order a green tea latte, but what Minhyuk finds himself saying instead is, “Recommend me something sweet. I had a terrible day at work.”

The barista, Park Kyung, gives a sympathetic smile, and nods. “Sure! Would you like –”

“– surprise me.”

The barista is taken aback for a moment, but he recovers quickly enough to say with the same polite cheeriness, “Alright, why not?”

Minhyuk thinks he fucked up, made a mess of the situtation with his awkward lines and abrupt conversation, so he hurriedly pays and moves away from the counter. But later when he picks up the drink from the counter, it’s a cup of hot green tea latte in a white porcelain cup, with a big smiley face drawn in foam on top. He feels a smile growing on his face as he stares at the drink. After he carries the cup back to his seat by the window, Minhyuk steals a glance at the barista who’s currently occupied, and he considers that maybe he hadn’t _completely_ messed things up. The green tea latte is sweet but not overly so, and Minhyuk feels his chest grow warm as he sips on it.

 

 

After that, Minhyuk frequents the café for morning coffee as usual, not bothering to go out of his way to patronize the shop lest he comes across as creepy. Some mornings he sees Yukwon, but most of the time now Minhyuk gets his morning order from Park Kyung, or Kyung, as he tells Minhyuk to call him one day when he realizes that Minhyuk calls Yukwon by his name.

“Minhyuk-ssi, the usual today too?” Kyung asks without looking up, and Minhyuk makes a humming sound in agreement. He’s sleepy without the caffeine, but if he’s being honest, he’s mostly distracted watching the veins move in Kyung’s forearms as he brews the coffee. Kyung’s wearing a white dress shirt as per the uniform of the café but his sleeves are rolled up today, and Minhyuk finds himself more captivated by the slight exposure of skin than should be normal. He only gets to observe it for a short while though, because the door to the café opens and another customer walks in, prompting Minhyuk to pull out his wallet and pretend like he hadn’t been staring.

“Hi Taeil-ssi, are you getting your usual order too?” Kyung calls out to the new customer, and Minhyuk feels his heart sink a little. _Of course he remembers other customers’ names and their usual orders, not just Minhyuk’s._ Of course. He pays for his coffee like he hasn’t been thinking of something lame like that, and even manages a smile at Taeil, who just gives him a confused blink.

Once his takeaway cup is placed on the counter, Minhyuk grabs it and heads out, not wanting to do anything stupid that might embarrass himself more.

 

 

“Don’t you think you’re coming here too often?” Jaehyo asks from across the table and Minhyuk has to set his coffee down. Jaehyo’s a close friend from university, and they happened to both be free this weekend so Minhyuk had suggested they catch up in person even though they already text regularly. He _definitely_ hadn’t suggested that they meet at this particular café; no, it’s just coincidence that Jaehyo lives nearby anyway, and the café was halfway between his apartment and Jaehyo’s. Yup, _definitely_.

“What are you talking about?” Minhyuk replies as evenly as he can, but Jaehyo has been friends with him for far too long to be taken in by his faked nonchalence.

“Anyone with eyes can see that you only come here to check out that barista who likes to wear shoes with ridiculously thick soles,” is Jaehyo’s dry remark, and Minhyuk quickly glances around to make sure no one’s near enough to hear Jaehyo’s words, even though they were spoken softly.

When he’s satisfied that no one’s listening, Minhyuk mumbles, “Am I really that obvious?”

The only reply he gets is a side eye from Jaehyo, but that says more than words would, and Minhyuk sighs.

 

 

It’s probably fair to say that Jaehyo’s right about Minhyuk frequenting the café too often even though he tries not to go out of his usual coffee schedule, because one day he finds himself talking to Taeil – Taeil who’s just another customer, who just happens to buy coffee around the same time in the morning. There’s no real reason why Minhyuk would even initiate conversation with another stranger, but he has seen the shorter muscular man around too often for him to ignore the guy. So one day, while they’re both waiting for their usual morning orders to be made, Minhyuk’s mouth opens before he realizes what he’s doing, and he hears himself say, “So uh, Taeil-ssi, right?”

If Taeil’s surprised that he’s been addressed, he doesn’t show it. “Hmm,” is all he says, and Minhyuk’s half-glad about Taeil’s non-reply, because it means he doesn’t have to continue the conversation if he doesn’t want to. Minhyuk’s wondering if he should ask another question (after all, he’s the one who started talking), but Kyung tells him his order is done, and that’s enough of an excuse for him to end the not-conversation he had accidentally started with Taeil so Minhyuk takes the chance and hightails out of the café.

 

 

The next morning, Taeil’s already in the café when Minhyuk walks in. That’s not too surprising; sometimes Taeil gets there before Minhyuk, and some days Minhyuk’s earlier than he is. What is surprising though, is the serious expressions Kyung has (he can’t see Taeil’s because the guy is backfacing him). Kyung has the view of the door, so maybe he notices Minhyuk coming in, but Taeil doesn’t, because Minhyuk hears him take a deep breath and then –

“Kyung-ssi, I really like you. Would you like to go on a date with me?”

Minhyuk thinks he might be more surprised than Kyung by the sudden confession, who just blinks and nods after Taeil ducks his head waiting for a reply. He’s more surprised than Kyung because even after Kyung smiles politely at Taeil and tells him that he’s not interested ( _not interested as in not interested in Taeil because he doesn’t like him that way as a person or because he’s a man?_ ) and Taeil gives a small awkward laugh before walking out of the café in a daze, Minhyuk finds himself still frozen where he is by the door. It’s only when Kyung walks out from behind the counter to wave a hand in front of him does Minhyuk snap out of it.

“Are you okay?”

Kyung’s face is one of concern, but all Minhyuk can think of is, _that could have been me_ , and he can’t remember what he tells Kyung but later, a block away from the café, Minhyuk realizes that he had left without buying his usual coffee.

 

 

“Please tell me the reason you’ve not been going back to the café is _not_ because you saw your favourite barista reject someone,” Jaehyo says in lieu of a greeting and Minhyuk regrets picking up his call.

“Of course not,” Minhyuk sighs. He’s lying, but after seeing Taeil get rejected by Kyung a week ago, he hasn't gone back to the café. He’s worried that he’ll accidentally tell Kyung his feelings, ask him out for a date (and get rejected) and he’s been avoiding the café ever since. It’s stupid, and to be honest, Minhyuk’s suffering with the instant coffee packets he brings to work now that he doesn’t buy coffee from the café in the morning, but he doesn’t tell Jaehyo any of that.

“Okay,” Jaehyo says, and Minhyuk should have realized that was too _quick_ , too easy, but he’s still grimacing at the taste of the instant coffee he just made so he doesn’t fully comprehend what else Jaehyo says until half a second later when he hears “Alright, cool, so see you tonight at the café after work, yeah?”

“Uh –” Minhyuk barely manages a word before the line is cut off, and he wonders if he had accidentally agreed to go to the café with Jaehyo while brooding over his terrible coffee.

 

 

“Oh. Minhyuk-ssi, it’s been a while,” Kyung says when Minhyuk reaches the front of the queue, and Minhyuk runs a head through his hair, awkward as he tries to remember what Jaehyo’s order is ( _why doesn’t the guy just drink Americano or some normal coffee?_ ).

“Yeah, I’ve been… busy,” Minhyuk lies, and he finally remembers what Jaehyo wanted. He repeats what Jaehyo made him memorize five minutes earlier, and Kyung smiles.

“I see. That long order is your friend’s?”

“Yeah,” Minhyuk replies, and he’s about to add his usual order when Kyung interrupts.

“Since you’ve not been here for a while, let me surprise you with something instead of your usual coffee, hmm?”

He blinks for a while because he hadn’t expected that, but Minhyuk hears himself breathe, “Sure, why not?”

 

 

Jaehyo offers to be the one to pick up the coffee since Minhyuk had ordered (and paid, being the hyung and all), so he sits at the back of the café where it’s quiet and waits. But it takes too long, and Minhyuk’s wondering where Jaehyo went when instead of his tall friend, he sees a shorter man in an apron walk up to his table with a tray in hand.

“Kyung-ssi, why are you here?” Minhyuk asks, knowing that the café is self-service only. And besides, wasn’t Jaehyo supposed to be the one to bring their drinks here? He tries not to think about the fact that he’s never really seen Kyung when he’s not behind the counter (except that one time he came up to ask Minhyuk if he’s okay after Taeil confessed to Kyung, which is definitely not something he should be thinking about now). He also ignores the fact that his eyes automatically take in how good Kyung looks in the cafe uniform, and how the brown of the apron should look really terrible but somehow doesn’t when it’s on Kyung. Somewhere in the middle of this, Minhyuk realizes that Kyung must have replied his question already, because he’s looking at him expectantly, and Minhyuk feels stupid when he says, “Uh, sorry I didn’t hear what you just said.”

Kyung looks at him, an amused grin on his face, and Minhyuk’s not sure what he’s missing, although he senses that something is up, especially when Kyung laughs.

“Well, I guess he did warn me that you were a bit _slow_.”

 _Who’s he?_ , Minhyuk wants to ask but he suddenly notices that in the tray Kyung had set down, there’s two coffees and one of them has a huge _heart_ drawn in foam. There’s also a napkin with a string of numbers (a _phone_ number) placed neatly beside. “What…?”

“You like me, don’t you?” Kyung says, and Minhyuk looks up from the coffee, eyes wide. He’s about to deny it ( _oh god, he’s gonna reject me, like he did to Taeil_ ) but what Kyung says is, “I sure hope so, because I kind of like you.”

Minhyuk blinks at him in silence, still stunned, and then Kyung laughs again. “God, he’s right. You are _really_ slow. I thought the heart on the coffee should have clued you in.”

Oh. _Ohh_. Minhyuk looks at the coffee again, then at Kyung, and he’s about to ask something when he’s interrupted.

“You should thank me for interfering,” is what Jaehyo says as he walks towards the table ( _had he been listening in the whole time?_ ), calmly picking up his coffee (the one without the heart), and walks away.

Oh.

Minhyuk looks up, taking in Kyung’s quirked lips, Jaehyo’s retreating back, and he’s suddenly not upset that Jaehyo dragged him here today. When he finally manages to open his mouth, Minhyuk asks something he has been meaning to for a while.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?”

He’s expecting a yes, but the cheek kiss Kyung gives him is much much better, and Minhyuk catches himself with a wide grin and his dimples showing too prominently through the reflection on the glass windows.

“I’ll love to.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is unimaginative but I wanted to write fluff and I've been wanting to write a barista!Kyung fic since I [gif-ed the inferiority complex MV](http://stillcian1675.tumblr.com/post/149262011601/close-ups-of-barista-park-kyung-x). There's more gifs than the hand one I pasted at the start of the fic but they don't go with the story haha so I didn't stick them in. Also, you know, Bkyung is cute and Minhyuk is awkward and I just wanted to write something different from all the angst I've been writing, or the plot I'm trying to resolve in my ongoing fics.
> 
> And I couldn't resist including the parktaerial (bacteria) couple lol. They were so cute in the My Zone MV behind the scenes.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading and I'll love to know what you think :)


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